Forever alone (6A)

When I was in eighth grade I attended a parochial school with a class of 8 kids, and 6 of them graduated. These were the same eight people I had known and been friends with since kindergarten. We all had known each other and didn't really have friends outside our school. Naturally I was nervous for high school because it was always explained as a scary “sinful place” and that I would have 300 kids in my class instead of 6. That the rules were very different and I was going from the top of the totem pole to the bottom.

Only one kid from my school was going to attend the same high school as me. We had one class together and I had no other friends or acquaintances. I not only had this but my older brother Jared who I have always been very close too left for college a few days before I started high school. I felt so out of place when I sat alone at lunch the first week or two and my life seemed to have turned upside down. My grades went from As and Bs to Cs and Ds. I was no longer the smartest kid in my grade but was now below average with no friends. What made making friends really hard was that everyone knew each other from our towns’ public schools.

Of course it all worked out but it was not easy. At the end of high school I had a GPA of 3.1 and many friends compared to the virtually no friends and 2.7 GPA freshman year. Today I’m proud the way I came out of that experience. I’m stronger, more social and have infinitely more confidence in myself. I’m no longer the timid alone boy; I am now a strong independent man.